Panthers Grow In Varsity Lacrosse

This was a season of growing for the Pikesville girls’ lacrosse team.

The Panthers had a group of experienced seniors, but they also used a younger bunch, and those kinds of teams go through ups and downs on a regular basis. Pikesville had its good moments, but the Panthers were mostly laying the foundation for the future.

Pikesville finished with a 4-7 record. The Panthers got a first-round bye in the Class 2A-1A North Region playoffs and ran smack into Loch Raven in the second round.

The Raiders ended Pikesville’s season and later advanced to the state title game, where they lost to Winters Mill.

Coach Andrew Burkhardt said Pikesville got some help from both the experienced and inexperienced players this season.

“It was kind of a mixture,” he said. “We had a good solid core group of seniors, and then we also had a real big freshman class on JV and varsity.”

The older players did a lot of good things while the younger ones learned some lessons. Pikesville played better at the end, winning two of its final three games, scoring back-to-back wins over Poly and Owings Mills before losing to Loch Raven.

Skylar Fidel paced the Pikesville offense all year. The senior, who and is headed to Cornell to play there, was the leader in just about every offensive category. She had 30 goals and 31 assists for a team-high 61 points.

She also led the Panthers with 70 shots on goal plus 38 ground balls and 21 draw controls. Pikesville will miss her next year.

“She leaves some big shoes to fill,” Burkhardt said.      

Arianne Schreier (19 goals, five assists), Lacey Kurlander (18 goals, three assists) and Alex Shearer (15 goals, three assists) were the other Panthers who scored at least 10 goals.

These three will return next year to give the Panthers some good experience. That’s where this year’s troubles should pay off.

"There’s definitely some solid underclassmen there,” Burkhardt said. “We’re looking to have some growth out of the freshmen we had this year.”

Several other freshmen and sophomores got playing time and a taste of varsity life. The lessons they learned in 2011 will let the Panthers probably teach a few teams something over the next few years.

The Panthers are trying to get back to where they were a few years ago, when the team captured three consecutive region titles from 2005-2007. 

“We’re going to put our best foot forward,” Burkhardt said. “We’re going to shoot to take the region.”